margin of 80-20 and the secure fence act passed, calling for a 700 mile extension of double layer fencing. >> "washington journal" live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. this segment and others at c-span.org. we'll take you live to the press briefing with sarah sanders. sarah: trying new things. trying new things. the good doctors got me on time today. i will open with a statement from brigadier general dr. richard tubb, white house physician emeritus, retired military officer and one of the longest serving white house physicians in history serving from 1995 to 2009. as a physician to the president he earned the trust and confidence of presidents from differing parties. he trained under a physician who did the same and then trained dr. ronnie jackson, the current physician to the president who has earned the trust and confidence of presidents from both parties. dr. tubb wrote, i hired and trained rear admiral dr. ronnie

jackson. and sidents, president mrs. bush trusted him. and mr. and mrs. obama trusted him as well. they selected him to be their physician. offer . jackson will president's fitness for duty. he supervised president trump's first periodic exam as president of the united states. having had the opportunity to review the tests, consult specialists, thoughtfully analyzed the results and discussed them with his patient he will provide us with his assessment of the president's medical fitness for duty now and for the remainder of his term of office. with regard to friday's examination, knowing dr. jackson, i am confident that he practiced good medicine. however, it would be an error to view that examine and dr. jackson's assessment as an isolated event when in practice it is an ongoing process. far more important to a meaningful assessment of the

president's fitness for duty is the doctor's evaluation, observations, interaction, conversations, examination during the remaining 364 days of the year. dr. jackson and his team have been doing precisely that from the moment donald j. trump was elected. beginning on november 9, 2016, the members of the white house medical unit began shadowing the new president-elect figuretively velcroed to his side 24/7. on january 20, 2017, dr. jackson became that velcro. his office is one of only a few in the white house residence proper and located directly across the hall from the president's private elevator. on any given day the physician's office, as it's known, is generally the first and last to see the president. dr. jackson has built and leads an organization that's better than any other in history. i know that. i, a physician to the president, was well served by this president's doctor. more importantly, president and mrs. bush were well served by

dr. jackson as were president and mrs. obama. in keeping with his oath, i have ever reason to believe that dr. jackson will well and faithfully discharge the duties of his office and that president and mrs. trump, the office of the presidency and the country will be well served because of him. thank you brigadier general dr. richard tubb for that background and that information and with that i will turn it over to dr. jackson and always, if you could, please keep your questions on topic and after dr. jackson finishes i'll come back up to address questions of the day. thanks, guys. dr. jackson: good afternoon, everyone. all right. so to start with what i am going to do i am going to read to you the summary of the president's physical and so i'll read through this and then after i'm done reading this immediately after the brief we'll make this available to everyone exactly as i read it here. i'll take a few questions. so start with, president donald j. trump has completed his first periodic physical

examination as president of the united states. i performed and supervised the examination with appropriate specialty consultations and diagnostic testing. it was conducted january 12, 2008, at the walter reed medical center. it was to provide the public with an update of the president's current health status and ensure the president continues to enjoy all the benefits of good health. this examination focused on evidence-based health screening and disease prevention. with the president -- with president trump's consent i released the following health information. vitals as follows. age 71 years and seven months at the time of the exam. height 75 inches. weight 239 pounds. resting heart rate 68. blood pressure 122/74. pulse, 99% on room air. temperature was 98.4. physical examination, system to include any studies done by

system. es, the president's 20/30 by laterally with corrective 20/20. funduscopic examine was normal. interocular pressure was normal. no ocular pathology was discovered. head, ears, knows and throat normal. -- nose and throat, normal. dental examine, he has healthy teeth and gums. there were no dental findings. neck, normal thyroid examine, no known. arteries normal. lungs were clear. a screening low dose c.t. of the chest demonstrated no pulmonary pathology. heart examine normal. no senator murry:s or no other heart sounds normal. e.c.g., e.k.g., was normal with a rate of 71. had a normal axis and no significant findings. he had a transdallasic echo

cardiogram done which had an injection fraction of 60% to 65%. normal wall thickness. no wall motioned a normalities. ate rhea were grossly normal. all valves were normal. he had an exercise stress echo cardiogram done which demonstrated above average exercise capacity base on age and sex. blood pressure and cardiac output response to exercise. he had no evidence ofess keepia and his wall motion was normal in all images. gastrointestinal examine, he had a normal examine, no masses. he had a normal opt cal colonoscopy done in 2013. june of 2013 that demonstrated no polyps or abnormal findings and because of that a repeat was not indicated at this time and will be deferred until his next periodic extra.

yurenary examine was normal. extremities and musculoskeletal normal. good capillary refill, no swelling or adeema. neurological imp, examination of the cranial nerves, function, deep reflexes, motor function, century system were all normal. a cognitive screening examine using the montreal assessment was normal with a score of 30-30. determine logic examine normal. o signs of cancer or adeemic diseases. i will go over the labs that is most important, most providers would be interested in and you can look at the details. laboratory results summarized, lipid panel. total cholesterol of 223. triglycerides 129.

h.d.l. 67. l.d.l. cholesterol of 143. his total cholesterol to d.h.d.l. ratio was 2.3. ood count to include white blood count were normal. values are on the written copy you'll get. metabollic panel, fasting was 89. b.u.m. was 19. liver enzymes, a.l.t. was 27. a.s.t. was 19. normal. 5%. eemo globein a-1-c was p.s.a. was 0.12. his thyroid screening with a t.s.h. was 1.76. he had a yuren alcisdone that was clear -- urinalysis done was clear. past medical history includes

hyper cholesterol and row asia. appendectomy at age 11. no past or present use of alcohol. no past or present use of tobacco. medications as follows -- he takes crestor to lower his cholesterol. he takes aspirin, 81 milligrams daily for cardiac health. akes propecia for male pattern hair loss. medicine for row asia. and -- roasia. immunizations, president during his physical examine had a revnar 13 to prevent pneumonia. routine vaccinations including seasonal influenza up to date and travel vaccinations are up to date. in summary, the president's overall health is excellent. cardiac performance during his

physical examine is very good. he enjoys to enjoy cardiac and overall health benefits that comes from a lifetime of abstinence of alcohol and tobacco. benefit from a diet that is lower in fat and carbs. he has a history of elevated cholesterol and on a low dose of crestor. north to decrease his cardiac risk we will increase the dose of this medication. he's up to date on all recommended preventive medicine and screening tests and examines. all clinical data shows that the president is healthy and will remain so throughout the duration of his presidency. ok. with that i'll take some questions. before we get started let me just make one comment. i'd like to point out to all in this room many which know me, if something should happen to you over the next few months and fall ill, i will be the one

called to take care of you. when you ask your questions, please keep that in mind. [laughter] yes, sir. reporter: dr. jackson, how much weight have you suggested the president lose and not exactly been enthusiastic about exercising. the president believes we all have a finite battery. why waste it on exercise when you can put it to other pursuits, what did you counsel him about that? dr. jackson: that's right. so i think the president, you know, he and i talked -- he would like a reasonable goal is to lose 10 to 15 pounds. we talked about diet and exercise a lot. he's more enthusiastic about the diet than exercise but we will do both. he and i will work together over the next year to incorporate a good plan so we can meet those goals. reporter: thank you. dr. jackson, two questions for you. number one, there have been some questions as part of your examine, the president's mental fitness. he's pushed back on that.

can you assess the president's mental fitness for office? dr. jackson: absolutely. so many of you may have picked up on the fact we did do a cognitive assessment as part of the examine. i had no intention of including this. per all the guidelines that are out there, it's not indicated at this time. a lot of the guidelines would suggest you do cognitive screening questions and if you have a positive or concerning answer in the screening answers you engage with a cognitive screening tool. i had no intention whatsoever doing that. like i said, because i didn't feel it was clinically indicated and part of the reason i didn't feel it was clinically indicated i spent almost every day in the president's presence since january 20, last year when he got into office and i've seen him every day. seen him one, two, sometimes three times a day because of the location of his office. we have conversations about many things. most don't reinvolve around medical issues at all. i got to know him pretty well.

i had absolutely no concerns about his cognitive ability or his -- you know, his neurological function. so i was not going to do a cognitive examine. id no intention doing one. the reason we did the cognitive assessment because the president asked me to do it. he came to me and said is there something we can do, a test or some type of screening we can do to assess my -- you know, my cognitive ability. so i looked into it and once again, my initial question i didn't think it was indicated and didn't think we should do it. there are a few guidelines out there that lean in the direction of potentially doing it. the medicare guidelines and some of the n.i.h., national institute of aging, they indicated it might be a good thing to start doing for patients in the future. with that in mind i went flew and looked at a variety of cognitive assessments available. most are very simple, very short. i think that's the goal actually for primary care providers in doing this is to keep it simple, keep it short.

we picked one of the ones that was a little more involved. it was longer. it was the more difficult one of all them. it took sickly longer to complete but the president did exceedingly well on it. that was not drirch at all by any clinical concerns i had. it was drirch by the president's wishes. he did well on it. reporter: during the campaign he would be the healthiest individual for presidency, would you agree? dr. jackson i won't comment on that. my job is to give you the assessment of president trump today and i won't make any comparisons with the presidents over the last 200 years. reporter: yes. there was an incident recently where the president appeared to slur his words while giving an address. did you look into what the cause of that might have been at all? dr. jackson: i did. we talked about that. actually one of my e.n.t. consultants was involved in that. we evaluated him. we checked everything out and everything was normal. we went so far to do an

ultrasound of his glands and there was absolutely no clinical findings that would suggest -- i think the reason for that quite honestly, me being up here is i need a drink of water. i think i had given the president some medication. specifically some sudafed over the day's previous and i think i had dried up his secretions a little bit more than i intended to. that led to -- that precipitated it. reporter: some said it could be related to dentures. does he wear them? dr. jackson: the president has no dentures of any kind. reporter: one about the -- my wife suffers from -- i included 60%. is that carney going forward for him -- is that a concern going forward for him because it -- dr. jackson: 60% to 65% is good. reporter: cholesterol 220. do you hope to get it under 220?

dr. jackson: we are not focusing on the total cholesterol than the l.d.l. we would like to get the l.d.l. below 120. that's what we're shooting for. reporter: with the low -- i understand the blood pressure was within norms. high cholesterol. are there any concerns for his heart health? dr. jackson: no, not at all. the one good thing -- there are many good things that came from his exam. the one thing that stards out is his cardiac health. his cardiac health is excellent. i think with all the other things in place he doesn't have any a family history of premature cardiac disease. he doesn't smoke. he doesn't have diabetes. a lot of the traditional risk factors he doesn't have. so i think those things in combination with the excellent cardiac results that we got from the exercise stress test is very reassuring. reporter: could you just elaborate in layman's term as possible -- you did a great job with that -- what you ruled out in these cognitive tests?

there have been reports that president has forgotten names, repeating himself. are you ruling things out early onset alzheimer's, dementia? second question, a lot of doctors at the back end of the physical like to give the patient tips, things they should change in terms of lifestyle. what did you tell the president outside of diet that he might want to change? dr. jackson: yes. i think that cognitive test, it's well respected. it's a test that's used throughout the united states, lots and lots of institutions use that test. it's the one they use at walter reed for patients they feel like they need to do cognitive screens on. it's a universally accepted test. like i said it's a little bit more extensive than some of the shorter ones that are in some of the guidelines. but it screens for all those things, any type of cognitive issues, alzheimer's, all the other things. so the fact that the president got 30 out of 30 on that exam i think there's no indication he

has any cognitive issues. on a day-to-day basis it's been my experience the president, he's very sharp. he's very articulate when he speaks to me. i have never known him to repeat himself around me. he says what he's got to say and he speaks his mind. i found no reason whatsoever to think that the president has -- i found no reason whatsoever to think that the president has any issues whatsoever with his thought process. reporter: did you recommend he make any changes like behavioral -- dr. jackson: no, not really. the main thing we focused with regard to lifestyle changes are diet and exercise. if we get diet and exercise right then weight loss will come. those are the things we focused on. there wasn't a lot to go on here as far as making him healthier in the year coming other than incorporating exercise routine, working on his diet and exercise, those

things will make him healthier next year though his healthier. dr. gupta. reporter: c.t. scan of his chest and echo cardiogram. did he need to be sedated at all? and was there something you were concerned about? dr. jackson: we got the c.t. scan because we were debating -- i didn't have background information from a pulmonary standpoint. i didn't have old chest x-rays to look at. i was going to initially get a chest x-ray, be done at that. it's so easy to whip in and takes a few -- a minute or two -- about as much time to get a cat scan than it does to give you a chest x-ray and gives you information about other structures in the chest. so just made more sense to get the c.t. done. with regard to the e.k.g., one of the things i did is i wanted to prescribe an exercise program for the president. i think it makes sense to get a good cardiac assessment in a

controlled environment like the hospital before you prescribe an exercise program to a patient. so that was my thinking there. e does not have heart disease. porter: he had cal see up -- calcium. r. jackson: he has nonclinical coronary -- sclerosis. that was mentioned in other physicals he had done. he did a score in 2009. it was 34. he had a coronary calcium score in 2013 that was 98. we did a calcium score in this one, i didn't mention it because i think it was clinically good information. it was 133. so had a long conversation with the cardiologist. not only the card yogs at walter reed but also at cleveland clinic and several well-known institutions and everyone saw it reassuring he's

gone this period of time and had that much -- that little of a change in his coronary calcium load. i think overall his coronary calcium score is assuring and goes along with the rest of the workup. reporter: a follow-up on the philosophy of the fitness of the president. a lot of people in the country have been talking about it contemplates a group of senate confirmed layman will see if the president will discharge he duties of the office. given some thought during your role. on what basis would you -- this is just a philosophical question -- advise the cabinet that the president is not able to discharge his duties. dr. jackson: section 4 of the -- of that amendment doesn't really -- you know, give me a specific duty or role. like you said, it falls upon the cabinet and members of congress. i think i'm just like any other

member of the administration that sees and talks to him on a regular basis. if there were things i saw of his cognitive ability or something to that extent that i would bring that up to the proper people in the chain of command, maybe starting off with the chief of staff or something. that's what everyone else in the administration would do. i don't think my role as a physician would be much different than any other member of the president's administration if they thought something like that were going on. i just think once that happened, if it were someone else in the administration i would immediately be brought into it to make the clinical assessment, see if i agreed with that assessment. i think at this particular point based on my exam and the cognitive testing that we did and just my day-to-day interactions with the president, the president is mentally very sharp, very intact. reporter: do you believe he's fit for duty? dr. jackson: absolutely he's fit for duty. i think he will remain fit for

duty for the remainder of this term and another term if he's elected. reporter: doctor, you talked a bit about president trump and your daily dealings with -- dr. jackson: did you say -- reporter: how can you determine that to -- you can't determine four years out? dr. jackson: i don't have a crystal ball. i can't look into it. based on his cardiac assessment you can make predictions, you can make cardiac calculations and you can see what his risk of having a cardiac or a creeb cebral cular event -- vascular event would be. he falls in the category that pretends years of event-free, you know, living. sure, i myself could have a big event tomorrow. i don't have that kind of -- i am not making that kind of prediction. based on the clinical information i have right now over the year of me observing him and the few things that happened with him medically over the year and in large part

on the objective data that we gained from this particular exam i feel very confident that he has a very strong, very probable possibility of making it complete through his presidency with no serious issues. reporter: so you talked about dealing with president trump on a daily basis. can you talk a bit about him as a patient, like what type of patient he is? does he take all your advice? you talked about -- since you are dealing with someone on a does he have any aler geese or anything like that? dr. jackson: on occasion he suffers from the same viral shall upper respiratory stuff you and i do and gets congestion and things of that nature. one of the things i found about president trump is that he's very independent when it comes to his medical stuff. i guess -- the way he grew up i

guess he takes care of most of the little stuff hisself. he doesn't come to me for band-aids and things of that nature. i'm easily accessible. a lot of folks will. so i think, you know, he's a good patient. he sometimes, i have to convince him why i want him to do something so he doesn't just take everything i say and just take it at face value and move on. he'll ask questions why should i do that, this, that and the other. for the most part he's cooperative. he follows medical direction. he's like every other president i have taken care of. i have to get the first lady involved to do what he's supposed to be doing. but he's a good patient. reporter: just to make sure we're clear on this. when you analyze his cognitive ability or neurological functions, that's not the same thing as a psychiatric exam? dr. jackson: no. it's a screening exam for cognitive impairment. reporter: dr. jackson, does the

president do anything at all right now in terms of exercise? what is his daily exercise routine if there is one? dr. jackson: i would say on a day-to-day basis he doesn't have a dedicated defined exercise program. that's what i'm working on. the good part we can -- we can build on that pretty easily. [laughter] reporter: you said you were discussing that. what would you like to see him start doing? dr. jackson: he doesn't have a daily exercise regimen. some people exercise. some people don't. some people just didn't -- didn't -- haven't done that as part of their routine. i would sigh that's the category he falls in -- i would say that's the category he falls in right now. i would say despite that, one of the things being with the president on a day-to-day basis that's been impressive to me, he has a lot of energy, a lot of energy and a lot of stamina and i think i first noticed

that -- we traveled some overseas travel last year and i was really surprised because i didn't know the president early on. you know, the days we'd get these 14, 16-hour days and the staff is just spent after a while and you are just like, man, when are we going to the hotel? when are we going down? you have the issues of different time zones and things of that nature too. i tell you out of everybody there the president had more stamina and more energy than just about anybody there. . we're not going to skip this we're going to do that that and stuck to the schedule despite the urging of some of us of let's forget the rest of the day. reporter: can you explain to me how a guy who eats mcdonald's and diet cokes and never exercises is in as good of shape as you say he's in? mr. jackson: it's called genetics. i don't know. some people have great genes. i told the president if he had a healthier diet over the next 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old. i don't know. [laughter] he has incredible genes.

i mean, if i didn't watch what i eat, i wouldn't have the cardiac and overall health that he halls so he's very healthy despite those things. and i don't think that he does that anymore. he's in the white house now. he's eating what the chefs are cooking for him now and they're cooking a much healthier diet for him now and we're going to continue working on that to make it even healthier. e has incredibly good genes. reporter: you mentioned the president -- [inaudible] -- test. was that the mini mental state examination? if not, can you tell us what specific -- mr. jackson: it was. it was the montreal cognitive assessment. you can find it online. sometimes referred to as the moca. reporter: do you have a life expectancy range for him based on his results? number two, what exactly does

his eating plan look like? are you going to put an eliptical machine? and also number three, did you see any evidence of bone spurs which the president says he suffers from? mr. jackson: none of that stuff's been bothering him recently so we didn't examine for bone spurs right now. he's not come to me complaining of that. so there was no reason in this particular assessment. we were pretty crunched for time. so we didn't look at issues like that. i didn't assess that. as far as life expectancy, i'll say, he probably won't live to be 200. but i don't know. i think his life expectancy is -- i would just have to say it's the same as every other american male right now. but it's certainly no less. reporter: the specifics of the dietary and exercise plan, what's in store? mr. jackson: when i'm doing is -- one of the things is i'm getting a nutrition specialist to come up here and meet with the chef we have here. they're going to go over the preparation of the president's food to make sure that we're cutting the calories and the

fats and the carbs as much as we possibly can and still making a good meal for him. with regards to the exercise, that's something that myself and potentially mrs. trump will work with him upstairs. there's a gym upstairs and we'll get that set up to his specifications and we'll see how that goes. reporter: [inaudible] mr. jackson: i don't limit his diet at all. i make recommendations. reporter: there isn't anything that's a part of the president's health records or his overall physical fitness or any medications that he's taking that you're not permitted to tell us? is there anything you're keeping from us for privacy reasons? mr. jackson: i can promise you there's absolutely nothing that i'm withholding from this. i can tell you that i've done the last four, five of these, i've been involved in probably the last six or seven of these and this is hands down more information that's been put forth by any other assessment to

date. i was -- friday was a good day for me. friday made today exceptionally easy for me. when we left friday, i was -- it was good for me. it made this much, much easier for me today. i'm not withholding anything. and i have reviewed the president's past medical records to the extent that they're made available to me and there's nothing at all that's concerning to me. reporter: given the president's age, he's somewhere like where president reagan was. can you say that there's scrutiny of what was overlooked at the time with president reagan in terms of a.l.s. and things he was then known to -- alzheimer's and things he was then know to -- known to suffer from. can you say whether the tests you ran would exclude some of those things and what the possibility of overlooking something like that would be? how can you tell the american people that this time you're certain? mr. jackson: i can say that that test, you know, and i don't know president reagan's actual medical condition and i don't know what his condition was like

toward the end of his presidency. i've read things and seen the documentaries like everybody here. let's assume that he did have some evidence of cognitive impairment toward the end of his presidency. i think that i can reliably say and i think that the folks in the mental health community out there would back me up on the fact that if he had some type of mental cognitive issue, that this test is sensitive enough it would pick up on it. he would not have got 30 out of 30 on the test. so i'm very confident at this particular stage that he has nothing like that going on. my personal experience has been no he has absolutely cognitive or mental issues whatsoever, that he is very sharp. reporter: quick question about p.s.a. are you confident of his prostate health? you recited a very low p.s.a. you're certain it's not a

product -- [inaudible] mr. jackson: it may be. that is probably why his p.s.a. is as low as it is because it's very low. but we have no indication whatsoever on prostate exam and based on his previous p.s.a.'s that he has any prostate issue going on. a lot of people would recommend that you don't even do a p.s.a. anymore. did i one because we had a long history of p.s.a.'s on previous examines and so i thought it made sense to do one. i had seen a large bump in his p.s.a. or something, it would have been concerning but didn't. so we're not going down that path. reporter: did you take a waist measurement for the president? it seems just shy of obesity, right? mr. jackson: yes, it is. reporter: you're confident of that number. mr. jackson: we don't do any measurements. we do height and weight. you can put him in the b.m.i. calculator. we've never done measurements. there's not a lot of point in it at this point. the president's acknowledged that he would be healthier if he lost a few pounds.

that's what we're going to try to do. doing measurements and getting some other form of calculation wouldn't have really changed anything clinically for us. reporter: because of his age and continuing his physicals in the future, will you also continue the cognitive testing? mr. jackson: that's going to be totally up to the president. like i said before, i didn't feel it was clinically indicated on this round. so i will continue to monitor the president over the next year. i'll talk to him on a regular basis. i'll visit with him every opportunity. i'll spend lots and lots of time with him over the next year. if i have any indication that we need to do it or if i come up with anything on any of his exams that clinically kealts we should do, that then i'll recommend doing. that short of that, if the president wants to get one done next years, then we'll do another one next year. reporter: it's recommended that most baby boomers get screened for hepatitis c. you have done one of those tests? mr. jackson: he has had a help-c test remotely.

did i find that in his past medical record but i did not do one this time. reporter: you talk a little bit about his diet here at the white house. can you flush that out a little bit? what specifically is he eating? chicken and fish and white meat? and also, does he take any sleep aids? mr. jackson: the president, first i have to admit to you, i see what he eats on the plane some and he eats the same food we eat on the plane which is fairly healthy meals. my news the desserts that we get. but i have not been as actively involved in his diet as i will be in the year to come so i don't have a lot of information on that right now. he's asked know get the nutritionist involved which basically has given me permission to become involved in that and i will. so i'll have more information on that. next year. what was the other question? sleep aids. the president does take some ambien on occasion on overseas travel. so when we travel from one time zone to another time zone on the other side of the planet, i

recommend that everyone on the plane take a sleep aid at certain times so we can try our best to get on the schedule of our destination. so, he has on those occasions done that. reporter: what about here at the white house? just when he travels? mr. jackson: only during travel. reporter: how much sleep does he get on average? mr. jackson: he doesn't sleep much. i would say that this is just my guess based on being around him, i didn't ask him this question so i could be wrong on this but i would say he sleeps four to five hours a night. he's probably been that way his whole life. probably one of the reasons he's been successful. i don't know. me personally, i need a lot more sleep than that. he's one of those people that just does not require a lot of sleep. reporter: can you state whether your prediction of good health and no serious events for years to come still holds if the president does not make changes to his diet and start to exercise? is that still your professional medical opinion? also, can you tell us how long the examination was start to

finish and how many people were involved? mr. jackson: i guess it's going to depend. this time next year we'll do a lot of the same tests and we'll do a cardiac assessment and everything else. when we get the object dave at that next year, we'll look at it and recalibrate. if he's made a lot of changes i assume he'll be in even better shape than he is right now. if he's eating better. and he's lost a few pounds. even if he hasn't, i won't make that assessment without doing a lot of the objective testing that we just did this time. then the other question was -- reporter: how long was the entire -- mr. jackson: the exam lasted about four-plus hours. so i think we were there -- well, about four hours, i think. and i had a total of, i believe, 12 consultants involved in it. i don't execute these physicals in a vacuum. i have a lot of specialists available to me. just like on a day to day basis,

i'm somewhat of a quarterback with regards to his care. so i spent weeks speaking with consultants and trying to figure out how to plan his exam appropriately and what was appropriate for his exam. it was a team effort with a lot of the physicians at walter reed who did a great job helping me take care of him. reporter: was there anything that the president or anyone else specifically said for you not to mention today? mr. jackson: absolutely not. as a matter of fact, there's a lot of things here, i was like, are you ok with me mentioning? he said, absolutely, i don't care. so -- yeah. reporter: follow up on that. some of the president's friends have told reporters in the past they think he's a germphobe. that he watches his hands obsessively and is concerned about that. did you see an indication of that type of behavior being around the president? mr. jackson:, no he washes his hands frequently. he uses purell. as many hands as he snakes a day, he would be a fool not to. the more he can wash his hands and use purelll, i'm encouraging

that. i would like for him to continue to be a bit of a germophobe and make my job easier along the way. reporter: any other o.c.d. behaviors? reporter: how would you characterize the president's health to an average 71-year-old american male? mr. jackson: based on his cardiac assessment, hands down there's no question that he's in the excellent range from a cardiac standpoint and that's not me speaking. that's objective data. you can look at the data that was collected and he will definitely fall into that category. reporter: is it just cardiac or everything? mr. jackson: it was cardiac. look at his vision. he's 71 years old and his bilateral division is 20-306789 he can drive without glasses. -- 20-30. he can drive without glasses. a lot of people his age can't do that. if you look at a lot of things across the board, he's very healthy. that's why i put out in the statement that the president's health is excellent. because his overall health is excellent. are there a few things he could

do to make himself healthier with the diet and exer nice? absolutely. he's tracking that. i'm tracking that and -- but overall he has excellent health. reporter: he is taking cholesterol-lowering medication. he has evidence of heart disease. and he's borderline owe beels. can you characterize thats -- obese. can you characterize that as excellent health? mr. jackson: based on his current cardiac study, his heart is very healthy. those are things we're looking at with regards -- you're a nurse surgeon -- there's stroke issues there too. but we're focusing on his cardiac health as an indicator of what the rest of his vascular health might be like. he has no evidence of vascular disease. his heart exam was in the excellent category for his age and sex. so i think that despite that, that you've mentioned, i think that we're doing a decent job with his cholesterol. i would say the dose of his cholesterol medicine is very low. he takes a very low-dose of his

cholesterol medicine. we have a lot of room to increase. that most cardiologists would put a patient on a larger dose of cholesterol medicine than that to start with. so we're going to up that. i suspect we do, that his l.d.l. will fall even more. and like i said, if we do the diet and exercise, i just don't think that he's got much room to do anything else. reporter: you said there were stroke concerns as well? mr. jackson: i was talking to dr. gupta saying it's not just the heart that he's asking questions about. i understand he's asking questions about vascular health, including heart disease and stroke and stuff. so i'm saying that we're looking at that, looking at his vascular health overanderson all and it looks very good -- overall and it looks very good right now. reporter: what about die netic -- diabetic, the potential, because of the weight as get older? mr. jackson: sure. that's always a possibility. we'll monitor that. right now his stuff is normal.

so right now fleece evidence of diabetes right now -- there's no evidence of diabetes right now. we'll continue doing the same things. reporter: did you test his hearing? mr. jackson: i did not. i will test his hearing. the only reason i didn't was because i didn't have enough time to do it in this particular exam. we had the exam pretty packed and we had to make comtois some conscious decisions -- some conscious decisions. hearing is low on the priority list. it's something i can do at any given point. i will get a baseline hearing test on him. reporter: does the president -- when the president has a colonoscopy, will he be is he dated? mr. jackson: that's up to the president. i will recommend that he is. you can do virtual colonoscopies where you're not sedated. i've had patient does both. i'm a big fan of the optical. i will recommend that if he does it that he be sedated. reporter: are you part of the decision making process on

handing over power to the vice president or whoever while he's is he dated? mr. jackson: i'll be making recommendations on that with the chief of staff and national security counsel and everybody else. reporter: you say that the president was the one who requested that cognitive tests -- that it wasn't necessarily needed for someone of his age. did you -- did he tell you why he wanted it done? there's been a lot of speculation out there about his cognitive state. was he upset with some of that talk? what were the discussions that you had from when he told you this is why i want to do it, why did he say he wanted to do it? mr. jackson: he wasn't upset with it but that did draw part of the process. this has been the narrative for a while and i think he saw doing the physical as an opportunity to put some of that to rest. and i think that he wasn't obviously the least bit concerned that he had anything to hide. so he actively asked me to

include that in it so we did. so i think -- reporter: was there any ones i incident that made him say, hey, this is something i want to do, or just a collection of voices, of criticisms or -- mr. jackson: not that i'm aware of. he didn't mention a particular incident to me. the reason it came up, i was going over the -- [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] >> watch the rest of this briefing live or later at cspan.org. the house will resume proceedings on postponed questions at a later time. for what purpose does the gentleman from wisconsin seek recognition? mr. duffy: mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 4258, as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: a bill to promote the development of local strategies to coordinate use of assistance under sections 8 and 9 of the united states housing act of 1937 with public and private resources, to le